The GOP’s decision to reinstate tax cut policy in 2001 exposed their hand. It was not about deficit reduction, growing the economy, or job creation. It was about ideology and, no doubt, special interests. It was a backdoor approach where government revenue was cut in an attempt to curtail spending on popular programs they otherwise could not take head-on. This while obstructing the work of Congress, spinning a web of deceit about the benefits of their policy, and weakening our country’s financial standing. It’s time to play hardball during ‘fiscal cliff’ negotiations and force them to be specific about what spending cuts they are talking about to offset the tax benefits they wish to preserve for the wealthiest. They wouldn’t have the nerve.

“…there’s remarkable consensus among mainstream economists, including those from the left and right, on most major macroeconomic issues. The debate in Washington about economic policy is phony. It’s manufactured. And it’s entirely political…and in a particular direction: Angry Republicans have pushed their representatives to adopt positions that are at odds with the best of modern economic thinking. That may be good politics, but it’s terrible policy.” Betsy Stevenson and Justin Wolfers

Mr. Romney’s claim during the first presidential debate that increasing the income tax rate for highly successful small business owners would result in job losses is nothing less than a scare tactic and a sham intended to benefit the “1%”. And as a businessman, he knows it.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has reason to protest. Special interest-driven deregulation policy was at the heart of the recent economic collapse. It has been the “99%” that has paid the price for this policy failure with lost employment, devalued housing prices, retirement accounts being cut in half, and increased levels of poverty while the wealthiest in America continued to do well. A valid question is why our elected representatives are not working together to put a stop to failed policy that has been so damaging to the majority of Americans. This article will examine the disproportionate number of the wealthy who hold elected office in Washington and the conflict of interest they face in setting policy versus their own financial interests as well as the special interests that finance their campaigns. And it will explore an incentive that politicians have to stay in office where they can act on non-public information to their own financial benefit. It examines the issue of whether our Congress has become ‘Our Unrepresentative Representation’.

Less than one tenth of one percent of our population is holding a sum of wealth approaching three times the size of the US economy that is anticipated to more than double within the next decade, the earnings on which does not contribute to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And the wealthiest in America quintupled their income during the heart of the Great Recession. To propose cuts to food stamps and unemployment benefits for the victims of the Great Recession during a time of increasing poverty and poverty-related deaths, without shared sacrifice at the top, represents nothing less than a moral crisis for our country.

Over the past 30 years the vast majority of income gains have gone to the wealthiest in our country. In an economy that is 70% personal consumption, we will continue to experience slow recovery and anemic job growth until we more broadly share prosperity and rebuild the purchasing power of our economic engine, the middle class

In listening to conservative economic ideologues who continue to support their policies as a way to stimulate job creation and economic growth, I decided to place them before the board of a corporation to defend the performance of their policies.

With dialog on Capital Hill being next to impossible, Senator Minority Leader McConnell has put forth a plan to allow the president to raise the debt ceiling to prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations. The politics are dangerous and the reasons for the ‘no compromise’ position on increasing taxes on upper level income are baseless. Finally, shame on Fox News for so effectively poisoning the well with conspiracy theories and distortions during economically tough times that all but destroyed the opportunity for reasonable dialog and compromise.

This letter was sent to the offices of Representative Boehner and Senator McConnell requesting that they provide explanation to the public on several issues regarding their tax policy and recent legislative tactics.

Recent Posts

There’s been a lot of talk recently, by our President and others, about gun violence and race relations. How to simultaneously address both? Have our country live up to its legal obligations under ICERD by putting a National Plan of Action in place.

It is beyond inappropriate to leverage the Charleston church massacre, an act of racial terror, to push for background checks on gun sales when that measure, as reported by major news agencies, did not prevent the crime, nor was it designed to capture those holding hateful beliefs. And doing so weakens the gun violence prevention movement by keeping the attempts to limit gun violence at an initiative-based level rather than a broader issue-based level that both recognizes the complex nature of gun violence and encompasses all segments of our society.

To understand what happened in Charleston it becomes necessary to confront the horrific and enduring history of racial terrorism in this country, terrorism that continues to this day as part of a dangerous global movement uniting white supremacists across the US, Europe and Australia.

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The GOP’s decision to reinstate tax cut policy in 2001 exposed their hand. It was not about deficit reduction, growing the economy, or job creation. It was about ideology and, no doubt, special interests. It was a backdoor approach where government revenue was cut in an attempt to curtail spending on popular programs they otherwise could not take head-on. This while obstructing the work of Congress, spinning a web of deceit about the benefits of their policy, and weakening our country’s financial standing. It’s time to play hardball during ‘fiscal cliff’ negotiations and force them to be specific about what spending cuts they are talking about to offset the tax benefits they wish to preserve for the wealthiest. They wouldn’t have the nerve.